Employers refuse to accede to a Union demand for UK workers to have priority over foreign staff.

June 29, 2009 - PRLog -- Employers are refusing to accede to a union demand for UK-based workers to have priority over foreign staff for engineering construction jobs because they say it would amount to illegal discrimination.

The industry faces a national strike ballot over pay and the use of overseas labour, even though a deal has been reached to end a two-week dispute at Total's Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, which sparked wildcat strikes at power stations and petrochemical sites across the country.

The agreement thrashed out late on Thursday between union leaders and employers of contract staff will be put to a mass meeting at the site on Monday.

The deal involved the reinstatement of 647 workers sacked for taking unofficial action in protest at a subcontractor's plan to make 51 employees redundant. The 51 will be offered jobs under the agreement.

The accord was achieved by the national joint council for the engineering construction industry, which said it expected all Lindsey workers to be employed for at least four weeks. It also said that, as a consequence of delays, IREM, an Italian contractor, would withdraw 120 personnel and have the scope of its work cut by 35,000 hours, which would be undertaken by Shaw, another contractor. Protests about IREM's Italian and Portuguese workers led to strikes in January and February. Although the unions achieved what they wanted at Lindsey and also appear to have won removal of the foreign workers, employers are optimistic about resisting demands in the national ballot by Unite and the GMB.

On the call for UK-based workers to have priority over foreign staff, Mike Hockey, managing director of the Engineering Construction Industry Association, said: "It is impossible to satisfy that trade union requirement because it would be illegal under the Race Relations Act 1976."

The employers have proposed freezing pay rates from January, arguing that they have honoured a 5.5 per cent increase, the final stage of a three-year deal, in spite of the recession and falling inflation.

Unite said it took heart from the constructive Lindsey talks. "It demonstrated that when employers and unions sit down together they can work through difficult and sensitive issues and bring them to a satisfactory conclusion," it said.

But Mr Hockey threatened a legal challenge if the ballot was not organised lawfully. Unions face a tough task to ensure the ballot covers all their members in a fragmented, mobile industry.

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